Cables, patches and beanies!

Hello! How was your week? Mine was delighfully stress free as we broke up from school on Wednesday for the Easter hols! Three weeks off!!! Yay!!! Have you noticed how happy I am....!

So, aside from winding down for the hols, what else have I been up to? Well, I've currently got two wips (work-in-progress) which are both fairly big projects so they'll be around for a while. Firstly there's this...

It's a cable sweater that a friend of mine has commissioned me to knit for her! Blimey! We had a bit of a tricky time finding the right wool but eventually we got it sorted and I'm using Elle Pure Gold Double Knitting which is knitting up beautifully but tends to 'fluff' a bit which is annoying. I hope that isn't a sign that it's going to bobble very quickly when it's finished! (For those of you who don't knit, 'fluffing' is when bits of yarn fluff off whilst you're knitting and 'bobble' is when you get those little balls of yarn on your garment after a few washes - hope that's clear but you're probably more confused than ever!)

This is the pattern and can be purchased from this link. http://store.vogueknitting.com/p-405-cabled-turtleneck.aspx

What do you think? She liked this particular pattern as it wasn't too baggy. She's quite short and petite and hates loose fitting sweaters as they swamp her! This one seems to be coming up with just the right amount of stretch so I really hope she likes it. Will keep you advised of developments.....

My second wip is something I've wanted to start for a long time. I've always wanted to crochet a blanket for our bed but something that doesn't look too new or too bright. I love bright colours but not in the bedroom where I like everything to be warm, snug and cosy. I decided that this would be year that I made it and seeing as we're going into autumn now, I thought I'd better make a start: Here are the colours.

As soon I pulled these together in my local wool shop, I knew they'd work well. Three shades of blue, three shade of green, three shades of brown, one grey, one cream and one red. I wasn't sure of the red at first but felt it needed a pop and the red is a lovely raspberry red which blends with the others very well.

This is what I've done so far....

It's all rather scrummy and lovely. As you can see, I'd done three rows when I took the pics but I've actually almost finished the fourth row so it's growing really quickly! I'm using Lucy's Patchwork Granny Pattern as well as her join-as-you-go method which makes life so much easier as there's no sewing up - always a win in my opinion!!!! The stats for the blanket are simple: 24 squares wide and 24 rows - 576 squares!!!!!! It does sound rather alot, doesn't it? .When finished, the blanket will be a square which seems strange for a bed but it'll hang to the floor on both sides (mainly to hide the 'space of doom' which exists under our bed!) In England we had a loft for all those items that don't seem to have a home in the house but here we have our 'under the bed' filing system..... Do you have one of those?

I'm also knitting/crochet a few beanies for a charity I support here for homeless children so if you have any patterns that you've tried, please let me know. I get sooooo bored using the same pattern over and over again!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be posting regularly with both the above wips so let me know what you think! 

Til soon.

xxx